The cost of cyber crime on global business could reach as much as $2.1 trillion by 2019, according to recent research.
Market analysts, Juniper Research, have compiled a report entitled The future of Cybercrime & security: Financial and Corporate Threats & Mitigation which outlines the steady increase in costs related to cyber crime.
The $2.1 trillion figure represents a four-fold increase from the estimated cost of data breaches expected throughout 2015.
The report notes an increased professionalism within the ranks of cyber criminals as the report predicts fewer attacks overall but an increase in more sophisticated and successful attacks across the world.
The report also warns small business owners that cyber attacks are not just aimed at the biggest companies in the market and can see smaller companies put out of business.
“The cost of cybercrime is disproportionately heavy on smaller businesses,” the report says.
“Larger organisations are more likely to be able to weather the resultant costs from a large scale data breach.
“Juniper Research estimates the global average cost of a cybercrime attack to be close to $6 million (higher in North America and West Europe), which is more than many small and medium-sized enterprises’ annual revenue.”
James Moar, author of the report, noted that the interconnectivity of devices and services, linked together in the Internet of Things (IoT), will prove a great access point for the cyber criminals of the future.
“Currently, we aren’t seeing much dangerous mobile or IoT malware because it’s not profitable,” Moar said.
“The kind of threats we will see on these devices will be either ransomware, with consumers’ devices locked down until they pay the hackers to use their devices, or as part of botnets, where processing power is harnessed as part of a more lucrative hack.”
The report expects the average cost of a data breach to exceed $150 million by 2020 as more businesses improve their connectivity and leave themselves exposed to data breaches and hacks.
